


and all the stars in the sky cannot reach us

by acupoftea



Category: Chaos Walking - Patrick Ness
Genre: /shrugs/, F/M, and im really not entirely happy with this but, cwss16, its all based during the first book, kinda??? i had a spare day & im bored & not used to having free time so i thought i'd throw this up, maybe one day ill write the actual in depth exploration fic, that this series deserves but for now theres this, the knife of never letting go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-27
Updated: 2016-12-27
Packaged: 2018-09-12 14:31:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9076669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/acupoftea/pseuds/acupoftea
Summary: and then again, todd remembers her voice; “viola.” it was the way she had said her name, the shape of it; it had felt like a song. like a beginning. like a something. like maybe even hope.





	

**Author's Note:**

> a series of small moments that take place in the first book.
> 
> wrote this for cwss16 technically, though i didn't have any secret santa as i didn't think i'd have time but here i am, contributing anyway.

they make camp for the night. 

“viola” she had said.

her name, her voice, lighter, higher, than todd had expected. than he was used to. he knows he’s been loud, letting the echo of it drift around in his noise, so as she tries to get comfortable on the ground he pulls out his mother’s book, squinting against the low firelight. 

“t” he says, under his breath, in a whisper. 

not that it matters if he tries to be quiet, because his noise fills up the gaps between them, because he’s never had to try to be quiet like this, to fit himself into just himself and not the world. 

“tod” and he swears. almost there. 

he can feel her – viola’s – eyes on the back of his head and he doesn’t mind. he’s used to it, the feeling of being watched. 

and then again, todd remembers her voice; 

“viola” 

it was the way she had said her name, the shape of it; it had felt like a song. like a beginning. like a something. 

like maybe even hope.

he tries again. 

“today.” he says. 

there it is. 

-

she misses space. misses the quiet, the murmur of other people, bodies and people around her, data scrolling and weightlessness, the looking out rather than looking up. 

she misses it, especially stuck down here (isn’t this what you wanted vi? isn’t it?) where it’s always wet, always damp, and the nights that they stop running makes the endless gap between  
feet-ground-crash-smoke-ache that much bigger. it’s not that she’s scared, but it’s something more to do with the burning in her lungs, the carrying a torch for everyone she left behind, everyone (thousands of lives and then some) following in her wake. 

the wanting to make it feel less like she’s running from and more to something (the wanting that she can’t shake – a whole world following after and it still feels like she’s going in circles, like the cumulative one step at a time is greater than the actual distance she’s put between wreckage-ship-bridge-burnt). 

and it’s never quiet here, it’s the opposite, it’s so loud, even above all the regular animal noises, there’s manchee, there’s this boy - who is so messy and so very strange - but who is more honest maybe even than manchee, who is also running _from_ and not to, and his noise which is the loudest of all, that is always spilling out into the night, especially when he pulls out his diary and painstakingly unravels word after word and-

she stares at the fire. 

she misses the quiet. 

viola looks up (again again again) at him across from her. 

“it’s going to rain” viola says, and it is, she can smell it (fresh bread and a stretch of blue, smoke rising, suffocating, choking her out of the ship-). 

he looks at her, doesn’t say anything but she catches it in his noise as well (green apples and a flash bang of a shotgun). 

it’s unnerving, the space closing between them, how she looks for herself sometimes in his noise, and she looks at him again this time, at todd (his name that is becoming himself, the boy, and not just a forgotten swamp) as it starts to rain, just as she predicted.

viola gets up, brushes herself off, and reaches out a hand to him, catching him by surprise. He takes it anyway, stands and looks up at the first drops of rain. 

“you would’ve impressed ben with tha’ one,” he says, a half grin on his face (something else, she is learning, that is a todd hewitt thing) and she doesn’t return the smile, but maybe she’s not the only one learning how to read expressions, because he must’ve caught her glimmer of amusement and his smile just grows wider. 

as he whistles for manchee, who disappeared into the undergrowth earlier, to get moving, viola realises it’s the first time she’s ever seen him smile. 

-

he can’t shake it, the whispering. it surrounds todd, it’s following him, trailing on the path behind them and in front and stretching on forever and he’s never held anything in him like this before, like it was himself or it always was and only just now becoming him, like a loop, a circle-

the knife feels so heavy in his backpack, his knees weak, his noise too loud and too empty and too dirty and too much, too violent and rash and every part of him hurts. 

viola says nothing, which says everything, because all her silences mean something, especially now, especially since this one is new and he can’t read it. at some point, much earlier or recently, he doesn’t know, she offers to take the pack and carry it for a bit, and he lets her, though his body doesn’t feel any less raw. 

todd’s afraid to look at her, afraid that he does know what this silence of hers means, that it’s all the fear and doubt and judgement and it doesn’t even stick because he can’t blame her, he almost wants her to leave and he doesn’t know why she hasn’t. 

he can’t even stand to be anywhere near hisself right now but he has to hold it, to keep it, he wants to run always and forever from now on because there’s a spackle dying, a spackle dead dead dead dead dead because of him and a knife in his hand and he looks down to check that it’s there – no to check that it _isn’t_ and-

viola takes his hand. 

she’s so quiet, and todd thinks if she could give that to him right now, then this is what it would be. what it is. 

he looks at her, trying not to see red or swamp or a jagged edge, looks at her and only her, at the way her short hair falls over the curve of her ear. 

she looks back, tells him “let’s go.”

her voice comes out small but strong, and todd swallows and nods because his voice is gone completely, even though his noise is still there, loud and louder, always. so they run and todd follows her and she never lets go of his hand, not once. 

-

running water. that’s the first thing viola hears. it’s broad daylight and they are so close, but she remains silent as todd pulls out some food, hands it to her. 

she told todd she didn’t really have any hope, but there is this moment and she thinks this is what it could be. they have each other and the sound of water and a road to haven.

to a literal haven. 

it’s more than they’ve ever had before and it’s less, and this thing viola thinks might overwhelm her, this rage that she took from her burning ship, tucked to her chest and forced it to stay, even after her parents and manchee, even after the way ben looked at her (and he reminded her too much of her father, that glint in his eye was so familiar) when he told them “hope” and maybe it cut into her more than it should have-

and they (her and todd, todd and her, just the two of them now-) probably won’t ever talk about it (manchee, and it’s a whisper) the way they don’t talk about her parents or the man made of red and wheat ( _cillian_ ) in todd’s noise. 

it’s not what they’re made of but still, this – being and knowing it, it’s enough. it’s enough to choose and then keep choosing (not easy though, it never would be) and she misses the damn dog more fiercely than she thought she could. 

and this ache is starting to get familiar but it’s enough. to remind him of what they have, of what she doesn’t (of what neither of them do now) and then let it close on a forgiveness she can’t offer but he takes because there’s nothing else left to it. 

and then to let it turn over again. 

so they run, and as the days pass it gets easier, just to breathe through it, to run more, to think, as they carry themselves away from carbonel downs, to watch todd watching her and letting this – them and the possibility of a possibility of _making it_ – grow between them. 

the space the two of them fall into together, over and over and over again. 

-

the waterfall thunders past and viola thinks it sounds too much like survival. the cost of. 

her stomach spasms again, and her hands are clenched, and she tries desperately not to think about the “how” of ending up here. the “why.” 

todd holds her and she closes her eyes against him, just for a moment, letting herself have this. 

survival. and todd. 

the knife is long gone, but she remembers the arc of the blade, the leather grip, the way it stuck in aaron’s body and stayed and stayed and stayed and it still feels like it’s resting in her hand, so she flexes it, once, twice. 

her hair is still wet (and it feels like the whole of her is soaked through) as todd holds her, keeps her upright (- just like she did, has done, will do -) and then she steps back from him, grips his hand tight and doesn’t let go. 

they’re standing on the edge still and she looks out at the rising sun, at the town in the distance and the blurred shape even further, tall and almost like a tower, almost like-

she doesn’t let herself think it, and she can see todd watching her and the sunrise, the light and the water, she doesn’t need his noise to know it’s there in his heart and his hands because it’s that look on his face the one that says-

(viola eade don’t you dare think it-)

and she does anyway.

this promise of survival, again (this circle they can never find the start or end of) and the blood has been washed clean from her hands (though she keeps looking down to make sure, grips todd’s hand too tightly but he never complains, never would-) and she follows him or he follows her but either way they start to run-

past the waterfall (a swamp long left behind, a river still running with them) and the dust that they kick up behind them (a herd calling out “here” and the rattle of a wagon beneath them) as they run (nights spent listening to pages rustle, trying to clear the smoke from her lungs, the smallest fires in the world because they couldn’t risk more than that, the knife that seemed to shift when she looked at it, a dog warm and soft and a boy all toothy grin and heartache-) side by side, towards haven. 

towards hope.


End file.
